Gwyneth is good for you: Spicy sweet potato soup with chipotle and coriander the perfect roasted sweet potato

My gosh, this is the perfect soup…with its southwestern flavours and its creamy, rich texture without the dairy, you’ll really feel as if you’re having a treat. For a bit of extra texture, pan-fry a few pieces of sweet potato in a bit of olive oil with toasted ground cumin or coriander and slide them on to the finished soup before serving



Serves 4

Elimination diet

Vegan
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, finely diced (about 1½ US cups)
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 sprigs of coriander, leaves reserved for garnish, stems tied together with a piece of kitchen string
¾ teaspoon cumin
coarse sea salt
1½ teaspoons chipotle in adobo (or more if you like)
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced (about 6 US cups)
1.4 litres · 2¼ pt good quality vegetable stock (recipe for home-made in It’s All Good)

✿ Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, coriander sprigs, cumin and a heavy pinch of salt and cook, stirring now and then, until softened but not browned, 10 minutes.

✿ Add the chipotle and the sweet potatoes and stir to combine. Add the vegetable stock to the pot and turn up the heat. Once the soup comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until the sweet potatoes are very soft, about 30 minutes.

✿ Remove and discard the coriander sprigs. Carefully purée the soup in a powerful blender. If you want a really refined, smooth texture, you can pass the puréed soup through a fine-mesh strainer.

✿ Garnish each bowl with a few of the reserved coriander leaves as desired.


A plain roasted sweet potato

Serves 1

Elimination diet

Vegan

Full of betacarotene and vitamins C, A and B6, sweet potatoes pack tremendous nutritional value and, despite their deliciously sweet flavour, are also said to help stabilise blood sugar. A superfood for sure, they’re beloved by many of my very fit friends, who snack on them all the time.


A roasted sweet potato is a beautiful thing on its own with just a pinch of salt, but you can shake up your routine by mashing your roasted sweet potato with a bit of Chinese five-spice powder, or drizzling it with a spoonful of goat’s milk yoghurt and topping it with a few pickled jalapeño chillies.


Sweet potatoes are also great with miso-almond sauce: whisk together 2 tablespoons white miso paste and 2 tablespoons raw almond butter (or 2 teaspoons toasted almond butter) with 4 tablespoons boiling water, and season to taste with sea salt.

For the perfect roasted sweet potato, give it a good scrub, prick it a few times with a fork, and park it in a preheated oven at 220C/200C fan/425F/gas 7 for1 hour, turning it halfway through. You should be able to slide the blade of a paring knife into it with no resistance. The time might be a little less if your sweet potato is small or a bit more if it’s large. Just don’t forget about it (as we’ve been known to do sometimes!).

We like to put the sweet potato directly on the baking rack so the skin gets a bit crisp, but we put a sheet of tinfoil on the rack below (or on the bottom of the oven) to catch any sticky syrup that might come out of the potato. Otherwise the oven gets annoying to clean.